


I don’t want to be like red

by Paddy_2020



Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: Awesome Henrietta "Hen" Wilson, Getting Together, M/M, Pining, Sad Evan "Buck" Buckley
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-02
Updated: 2021-01-02
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:01:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28492815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Paddy_2020/pseuds/Paddy_2020
Summary: Buck meets Red in the bar, and he tells him about the crush he has on Eddie. Red tells him to do something about it, but Buck instead tries to deflect by setting red up with his lost love. The canonical romantic failure ensues and Red wants to be left alone for a while, until he’s admitted to hospital and asks for Buck to be there for him when he dies. After the death, the younger man does a lot of soul searching and decides that if he doesn’t tell Eddie how he feels, that’s going to be him.
Relationships: Evan "Buck" Buckley & Henrietta "Hen" Wilson, Evan "Buck" Buckley/Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV), Evan Buck Buckley & Red
Comments: 5
Kudos: 105





	I don’t want to be like red

“I still think you’re an idiot for that rope rescue kid”

”Yeah. Well, there’s a woman alive right now who wouldn’t be if I hadn’t done it so I’m currently pretty happy with myself”

”I bet your girlfriend doesn’t feel all too happy about it”

”Wouldn’t know. I’d have to get one first”

”Kid, please tell me you have someone to go home to”

”I was out, alone, at a ladder and shield bar, and started a conversation with a guy who is two and a bit times my age and called me an idiot. What does that tell you about my relationship status?”

“Single and depressed about it. And you shouldn’t be like that”

”I think this is where I call the pot out for giving advice to the kettle”

”Yeah, well you’re a considerably younger kettle so you have time to change that relationship status of yours. Is there anyone you’re even remotely interested in?”

”Well, there is someone but I’m pretty sure he’s straight”

”Ahh, well why don’t you ask anyway?”

”Last time I asked a straight guy out on a date I got hospitalised. Enough said?”

“Do you trust this guy?”

”Yeah, I’m not worried about him physically hurting me. It’s just he’s my work partner and we’re good friends and if I lost that, if I lost that I don’t think I could go on with everything. I almost lost it when I got injured last year and I was so close to just giving up on it all without that support and I just don’t know if I could manage that again”

”Kid, I remember you now. You got crushed under your truck, didn’t you?”

”Yeah, then I had to sue the department to get reinstated - I gave up a 53 million dollar settlement to get him back and I won’t lose him again.”

”I had a close friend like that. We kept in touch for a few years, but he had a wife and a kid and eventually his life just got so busy there was no room for me in it anymore. So what I’m trying to say is, you’re going to lose him eventually - trust me, he might be willing to jump in front of bullets for you now, but in fifty years time when you’re an old pensioner like me, he’ll be too busy being a grandad to come by and visit - so if you’ve got something good, double down and ask the question. I can’t pretend this is something I’ve got much experience in, but I’d say that if he decides he never wants to see you anymore because you’re attracted to him, well he doesn’t deserve to be your friend anyway kid”

”Enough about me. Who’s this”

”The one that got away. We were going to be married and then we weren’t - I pulled one extra shift too many when we were intending on going out to a game for a date and I came home to find her gone and a note on the table telling me why”

”Bet you never had a girlfriend ask you to drop her off at the airport so she could go and ‘find herself’ in Europe with her final words being ‘please don’t think you have to be exclusive whilst I’m gone”

”Ouch. I hope you weren’t.”

“Didn’t date anyone for almost a year and then eventually I moved on to another girlfriend who dumped me unceremoniously after my accident”

”Why?”

”I wanted to go back to work in the LAFD and she wanted me to get an office job. Maybe I was selfish, it’s just - I need my job, without it I’m just some failure with no qualifications and no friends”

”You weren’t selfish, you just need to realise that the job is not all you are. I hate to say it kid, but one day you’re gonna retire and there’s going to be someone ready to take over from you the next day, as if you were never there”

”Yeah, but while I’m doing the job. I can make a difference - that uniform, when I wear it, changes how people think of me, how I think of me and I don’t really like me when I’m not wearing it. Anyway, we’re going to find her, you’ve still got plenty of time ahead of you old man and I’m going to find you someone to come home too”

** The next week at the 118: **

“Remember that guy I told you all about last week, Red?”

”Yeah, you said you were trying set him up with his past sweetheart” Chim provided

”How did it go?”

”Not well Hen. Not well at all, and I now feel really bad - I gave him hope and then it was taken away. He has no one”

”He has you”

”He met me one week ago in a bar and I check in on him every other day. He should have people he knows a little better than that. He doesn’t even speak to his old crew anymore. We won’t be like that, will we?”

”No Buck, we’re a family” Bobby reminded

”Its just, if anyone here’s going to be another Red. It’s me and if that’s my future, I don’t like it. I’d honestly prefer to go, however painfully responding to a call than like that”

”Buck, just because you’re single doesn’t mean...”

”I can never keep relationships. Never in my whole life have I initiated a break up. I’m always the one who gets dumped”

”You broke it off with Ali.”

”No, she dumped me when she realised I wanted to go back to the LAFD, I just didn’t say to any of you guys”

”One minute. You spent your entire recovery alone?”

”Other than you and Chris up until the tsunami, yeah. I didn’t see another soul”

”no one?”

”No one.”

”Buck, why didn’t you say?”

”Because I don’t like being a burden. I like to be the one helping others, not the other way around”

”But, everyone needs help occasionally”

”I don’t want that help if it comes from your duty to me as my coworker. All of you, tell me honestly - would you even be friends with me if I wasn’t in the LAFD, or would you think I was some douche bag who you would want to avoid at all costs”

”Buck...”

“No Bobby, I’m not trying to make you all feel bad. But I know the way I appear, I know that my build, my car it all makes me look like some high school bully who never grew up”

”But then we saw who you really are and we know that couldn’t be further from the truth”

”Yes, but would you have taken that time to get to know me if you weren’t trapped in the same building as me for 24 hours at a time. Because I know that you wouldn’t have, the only people who would try to get to know me are people I don’t want to get to know, so I guess I’m just scared that once I retire, or am forced out of this job by an injury. I guess I’m scared that I’ll be alone just like Red, just like I was after the bombing”

”You got through that though Buck, and it’s made you stronger.”   
  
“I only just did. The number of times I sat there with a full container of pain meds tipped out into my hand and a glass of water” Buck shuddered, “just considering whether I actually wanted to go on with everything. I just don’t want to be alone, and it’s none of your faults. I’m not your family and I don’t expect to be treated as such, I just want my own actual family. I want to grow old with a partner and have kids and eventually grandkids. I just don’t think that’s ever going to happen for me”

Hen and Eddie were crying by this point and Chim looked like he was on the verge of joining them. Bobby just looked like he’d been hit by a bus and was as white as a sheet “Buck, did you seriously consider...”

”Yes Bobby, I did. I’m not ashamed of it. And before you get worried, Frank knows and we’ve spoken at length about it”

”Buck, you have friends, we’re your friends”

”But I don’t have any who I don’t work with. That’s why this job is so important to me - when I put this uniform on, I am something - without it I’m just a failure”

”Buck. Listen to me and listen to me good. You are not a failure: you did Navy SEAL training, you have a degree in history from the university of Pennsylvania and you came top of your class in the academy. You are by no means a failure”

”I dropped out of SEAL training, my parents wanted me to do medicine but I didn’t have the grades and the fact that I came out top of my class at the academy only matters when I wear my uniform - otherwise what’s the point?”

”You dropped out of the SEALs after going through your full BUD/S training and Hell Week, you’re a damn side more academically qualified than the rest of us, medical degree or not and no one can take away the fact that you excelled at the academy” Bobby countered

”Yet you’re all living happy fulfilling lives and have someone to come home to and I don’t. The last relationship I had that I actually got something out of was with my high school boyfriend. And when my parents saw us kissing, they quite literally threatened to kick me out”.

The team were all stunned. But Hen recovered first “Buck, why didn’t you say something before?”

”I don’t like doing, this” he motioned around. “I don’t like being the centre of attention and I don’t like relying on people because they eventually all leave. I guess I’m just rattled by Red’s situation, you should ignore me. I’ll go lie down and I’ll be fine tomorrow” Buck replied quickly, felling a red flush or embarrassment creeping up his neck. He then ran off to the bunk room before any of the team could reply.

”He’s being overdramatic, right? We’ll all keep in touch?” Eddie said, hopefully “You all keep in touch with the crew that used to work here. Don’t you?”

After mumbled excuses from Hen and Chim saying that they weren’t really people you’d want to stay in contact with. Eddie resigned himself to knowing that Buck was right. He was going to be a loner like Red. Come to think of it, Eddie was too - in his mind Eddie was already taken, he couldn’t make a relationship with anyone else work while he was still friends with Buck. Despite the fact that they weren’t in a relationship, so much as going out for a coffee with someone else felt like cheating to him and he just couldn’t bring himself to get over that thought.

”I still can’t believe that he thinks we don’t care about him” Chim said.

”No, he knows we do. It just sounded like he doesn’t think he deserves our friendship?” Bobby asked

”I know Buck best of all of you. He just can’t let you take care of him. It’s something deeply engrained in his mind, he feels he has to always be the Alpha male provider who never shows weakness or asks for help. You know he once told me that the hookups just made him feel so bad about himself”.

”I always thought he enjoyed them” Bobby said, confused as to why someone would do that otherwise

”He said he did enjoy them whilst they were happening, but then when it was all over and the girl, or I suppose guy walked off without giving him their number or even taking the time to learn his actual name he just felt used and like a piece of meat”

”Shit. That’s the other thing, how did we never know he was Bi?” Hen asked

”I don’t know, but if he’d actually come out, I’d have made a move ages ago. Now it feels weird to ask my best friend out, and if we broke up I don’t know what I’d do”

”One second, YOU’RE BI!” Hen whisper shouted “Seriously, why didn’t you say?”

”I was out back in El Paso, but there was this lady, her son was having a cardiac arrest in the street and despite the fact that I was a combat medic with a silver star, she wouldn’t let me touch him because she knew I was gay. So I suppose I never said when I arrived in LA, I just never want to have to see another person die in front of me, when I could very easily help but wasn’t allowed to, because of the way I choose to live my life”

”Eddie, you know as well as I do that being gay, or Bi or lesbian is not a choice” Hen said

”But choosing to date guys is.”

”It’s the same thing Eddie”

”No, you don’t understand. I know it’s not a choice to see a cute guy walking down the street and think he’s hot but it is a choice to actually walk over and ask him out”

“I see no difference Eddie. If that mother had a problem with who you are, then as callous as I’m gonna sound here she has only herself to blame for her son’s death. And that certainly shouldn’t dictate how you live. Also if you want to date Buck, date Buck. You’re practically doing it already, minus the fun part”

”I know, he spends more time at mine than at his. But I’ve got so much to lose if he says no, that it’s not worth it”

”You’ve got so much to gain if he says yes. Not least because his nickname used to be firehose” Hen said with a wink

”Hey, I’m a top. Non negotiable” Eddie said, feigning anger

”What’s a top?” Bobby asked, confused.

”Eddie, care to explain. Cause I don’t want to” Chim said

”It’s probably going to be less embarrassing all round of you just google it. Just don’t do it on your work computer” Hen suggested

”Huh?”

”Fine, it’s the one who. You know...”  
  


”Ohh, right. I’m definitely not doing anymore googling on that topic. But anyway, I didn’t realise Buck was in such a bad way after the tsunami - suddenly the lawsuit makes a lot more sense”

”Yeah. He was quite literally trying to save himself”

”We were shit friends” Eddie said ruefully 

“We were, but I don’t think this is about lack of friends. I think this is about a lack of a partner. It must be hard to always get dumped, I’ve been dumped by a few people, but every relationship you’re in, to be dumped at the end of it. I don’t know how long I could put up with that”

”Yeah. That would make you feel unwanted very quickly”

”Should we set him up on a few dates?”

”I don’t know. He talked about his image. Maybe we could help him craft it to be more in line with who he actually is?”

”The problem is that is image is a part of who he is. It’s his sort of shield from, it’s his shield from his father”

”Huh?”

”He told me about him once. Sounded absolutely awful, you know the sort of person who would vote red, even if there was a dog running for the republicans and Albert Einstein for the democrats” Eddie said

”Oh, one of those. Not the ideal atmosphere for an LGBT kid to grow up in. Or any kid for that matter” Chim replied, he had way too much experience with conservative, hyper-traditional parents.

”Well, we’re not like them and I think we need to work on being more present friends. He’s clearly going through some shit right now and I am not being called to a suicide and having to pronounce my friend and colleague dead in front of you all” Hen said. Tears pricking her eyes.

xxxxxxxxxxxxx

“Hello?”

”Hi, is that Mr Buckley?”

”Yes. It is, is everything okay?”

”Well, as you’re Mr Delacroix’s emergency contact, you should be aware that he’s just been brought into the UCLA emergency room”

”Is he okay? I’m coming in now.”

”The form isn’t quite complete. He didn’t list what relation you are to him. I take it you’re a son or nephew?”

”No, just a friend. We’re both firefighters who gave or give in my case way too much to the job to have social lives” Buck joked, although his laugh was hollow

”Well, Mr Buckley. I’m sure he’ll be happy to see you, he’s pretty upset right now”

”Ok, I’ll be there soon”

xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

”Red! What happened?”

”I’m dying.

“No you’re not, I’m sure you’ll be fine”

”No, I’m dying. It’s a heart condition, they can’t do anything about it. I’ve lasted longer than they thought I would actually, always was a stubborn bastard”

”Well, I’m stubborn too, so you’re not gonna die on me, okay”

”Kid, you know I’m gonna die. Just promise me, you’ll ask this Eddie Diaz out. If you don’t do it for you, do it for me. The worst he can say is no”

”Well, given he once had aspirations of being a professional MMA fighter, so I think the worst he can do is fly kick the shit out of me. But I know you’re right”

”I’m always right. Anyway kid, I’m tired. Will you be here when I wake up?”

”I’ll be here till the end”

”You don’t nee...”

”I would want somebody to do it for me, so I’ll do it for you”

”Cap, you know Red?”

”Yes, of course Buck, is everything ok?”

”Well, he’s dying and I want to organise something for him before he goes. Think you could contact the captain of the 134?”

”Yeah, what do you need me to do?”

”Could you convince him to bring their ladder rig down to the hospital?”

”I can certainly try. And if captain Sanders won’t, I’ll bring ours”

”Thanks cap. It’ll need to happen tonight or tomorrow morning I think. He doesn’t have long left according to the nurses”

”I’ll have a fire truck outside for you by 10 o’clock tonight if I have it call in every favour I’ve ever been owed to do it”

”Thanks, it means a lot to me and I know it’ll mean a lot to him”

”Buck, we’re ready. You can bring him out”

”Sure thing Cap”

”Ready?”

”Yeah kid, where are you taking me?”

”On one final call. Come on”

Buck wheeled Red out of the hospital and past the guard of honour Bobby had organised, until he reached the 118’s truck

”Firefighter Delacroix” Bobby asked sharply “You can ride up front in the Captain’s seat. Eddie, help him in”

”Thanks Buck, Captain. This really means a lot”

”Don’t mention it. Eddie, is he in?”

”Yeah cap. Do you want me to drive?”

”Yep. Buck and I will be in the back”

”Kid, are you Eddie Diaz?”

”Yes sir”

”Well, seeing that Buck has done this for me, it’s only fair I do something for him. He wants to ask you out but doesn’t have the courage to, cause he’s scared it’ll ruin your friendship, but I think you should know anyway - he a good kid and by the sounds of it, you’re practically married at this point anyway”

”I never knew he felt that way about me” Eddie mumbled “if I had I’d have freaking asked him out ages ago though” he said much louder so it could be heard in the intercom system.   
  


“Really Eddie, you do? You’re not just saying that so as not to ruin the moment?”

”No, I’m not. Ask Bobby, Hen and Chim. When you came out I said if I’d known you were Bi I’d have asked you out when we first met”

”Seriously?”

”Yes Buck. I love you and I have for a long time”

Buck started crying. Not too obviously but crying none the less, eventually thanking Red, before they arrived back at the hospital and he wheeled him back to his room.

”See kid, a bit of bravery, that’s all it takes. I knew looking at him he was a good guy - I think you two are well suited if I’m honest”

”Thanks”

”Now go out in your date!”

”No, he’ll be there tomorrow. You on the other hand, well...”

”I might not be. All the more reason not to worry about hurting my feelings”

”Red, I made a promise and if you haven’t realised by now from watching my rescues. I don’t break a promise”

”Ok kid. Have anymore war stories then?”

”Well, I’ve got a good one about someone who managed to get themselves stuck halfway through a bathroom window?”

”Oh, now this is one I’ve gotta hear”...

** Two days later: **

“Buck, I’m so sorry”

”Don’t be. He lived a good life and he left me the best gift possible just before he went”

”What?”

”He’s waking into the station now”

”No way, you and Eddie. You’re together now?”

”Yeah. Red told him about my feelings while we were in the truck and Eddie said he felt the same”

”Oh Buck, I’m so happy for you!” Hen said pulling her friend into the biggest hug.

”Just, no using the fire truck. Okay you both have access to it and it was bad enough when you took it off site for your activities. I definitely do not want to be restocking equipment and walk in on that” Hen joked

”Don’t worry, my days of fire truck hookups are over. Anyway, it was not as cool as it seems. Actually really uncomfortable - we think those seats are well padded, but it’s actually just all the turnout gear that makes them comfy”

”Morning Buck! So I was thinking, Chris is out at abuela’s tonight and there’s this new Thai place near my house - do you fancy dinner?”

”I think I could be talked into it”

”Oh, how about dinner and _dessert?”_

“Definitely sounding like a good plan now”

”I’m glad you met red. Without him you and I would have just gone on breaking each other’s hearts”

”No you wouldn’t, I’d have locked you in a supply closet until you figured it out. Don’t worry, that’s what friends are for”

”Thanks Hen, but I think we’ve got it figured out just right over here” Buck said, kissing Eddie lightly on the lips

”You two are so adorable together it hurts, how did we never see that chemistry”

”Red did. And for that I will be forever grateful that you were an idiot with that rope rescue and went out to the bar to celebrate”

”So will I Eds, so will I”


End file.
